The Official 2015 Australian Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS with Flux Capacitors***

J i m Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Right! Let's make a Melbourne 2015 thread right
> now :P

Sounds like a plan. :P
Just don't ever tell me to jump off a cliff, or I'm f*cked.

---

Well, I'd say let's make a Spa 2015 thread right now

Just being slightly off-topic but did anyone else look at the first two smileys?
Ok, that one was bad. I just happen to be really sleepy right now :D

Let's talk about that race then. Looking forward to something like in your signature, EC83. Melbourne should give us one of these again (no injury and stuff as well, worked in that particular event). Apart from talking about history in Melbourne, I'm not too sure on how this thread is gonna be [www.youtube.com] . No, don't thank me, if you clicked that link

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ...

Obviously Force India have been setting the pace in testing, so I can't see beyond them for the win, so long as they can keep their rear wings on and the cockpit canopy doesn't blast off going through the chicane again!

Barrichello's pace is surprisingly good given how long he's been away from F1. Who'd have thought he'd be Vettel's equal so soon?

Aye, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Alonso put the ex-Caterham on the podium either, it seems to have gelled rather well with the Honda powertrain.

Reminds me of a timewarp "prediction review" made by Red Sam in late 2008 about the 2009 season, where he said it'd been great to see Schumacher back and Barrichello winning another race, but that Piquet was still a n00b. And that one turned out to be more accurate than anyone could've guessed!

---

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2014 02:56PM by EC83.

Narain Karthikeyan and the Mahindra works team seem up to the challenge in Sandown



Stats: 139 Starts / 7 Wins / 9 Poles / 5 Fastest laps

I hope this could be a great weekend for all teams.

Less than two weeks to go now. @#$%& hell!

---

So, post testing what do we reckon?

Assuming clement weather...

Group 1:
Ding ding, Lewis v Britney round 2.

Group 2:
Battle royal between (in no particular order) Williams, Ferrari and Red Bull.

Group 3:
Midfield scrap (with the occasional hero escaping the pack to play with the big boys) between Lotus, Toro Rosso, Force India and Sauber.

Group 4:
Those lovably plucky chaps from Manor, trundling around at the back but most importantly of all hopefully being there.
I assume they'll struggle to qualify at Melbourne with the disadvantages they have, drastically differently staffed team, moved across various premises, car yet to be completed or ran at all. Using last year's Ferrari engine could be a mixed blessing, it means they're at an instant power disadvantage but at least they have a package that should have less trouble shaking down and ought to be reliable.

--

Speaking of reliability, it's difficult to predict where McLaren Honda will fit in. Presumably somewhere between group 2 & 3, but they're on the back foot. Similar turn arounds have happened though. They had a difficult preseason in 2011 but turned up in Melbourne as best of the rest, and remember what Red Bull achieved last year.

I'm just about with you completely.

Williams might be a touch ahead of Ferrari and Red Bull at the moment, but I can see them playing the conservative card again and dropping behind both of them in the points this time, now that the Ferrari certainly looks stronger than last year, even without Alonso.

I think McLaren will be in this group for 2nd by the half way point of the season - if they've got any engines left at that point of course and don't have to start every other race at the back. Come the end of the season I think they'll be right up pushing Mercedes hard - if it's true that they still haven't turned the engine up to 11, then it looks to have massive potential and they've taken a very aggressive approach with the chassis (to the point where I think they've intentionally built a car to find problems in readiness for 2016 and that they wrote off 2015 a long time ago).

Sauber look to have upped their game rather than falling out of Q3 each time, so should be mixing it as you said.

I thought Lotus would be stronger with the Mercedes engine and that they'd fix the apparent inherently flawed diffuser on the 2014 car and be right back up in the battle behind Mercedes, but judging from trackside reports the car still looks a real handful and hasn't shown any great outright speed nor looked decent in the long-runs.

I feel much more confident this year about the pace of the different cars. Last year it was impossible to guess who'd be where other than the obvious (Mercedes were sandbagging, Williams were strong, Renault were shocking), and even guess how many quarters of the grid might finish!

No Alonso for this race. He will be replaced by Kevin Magnussen. Alonso is fine, but they're wary of another concussion so close to the first (something sport has really tried to clamp down in the last couple of years, at least in the UK). I'm guessing Alonso will be in the garage.

Hardly a massive issue given the thing seems less likely to finish than Mansell's Ferrari 640. Of course, we know what happened the first time that ran, but somehow I can't see it happening with the McLaren.

And Magnussen had a decent enough 2014, well enough for McLaren to take about 42 years to decide which driver would partner Alonso.

Manor are increasingly confident that they'll be at Melbourne, they're crash testing an 2015 legal interim car tomorrow, before introducing the 2015 later in the season. Investors have also been announced.

And the 'interim' car which is a 2014 Marussia basically (and heavily) modified to fully meet the 2015 regulations has passed the crash tests, it's all systems go and freighting to Melbourne ASAP.

As far as I can gather some parts of the 2015 design have been carried across to the 2014 car. The definitive 2015 car is still in development and is planned to debut later in the season.

Apparently they now have a budget of about £90m. Which would frankly be amazing considering just how much debt they've been in.

But this is simply terrific news.

I think that now Williams have the money in the bank from a Top 3 WCC last year, they should be a bit more aggressive this year and try and take the next step. I think that last year they just really wanted to set a platform for the years to come rather than necessarily go all out. There is realistically no chance of them catching Mercedes but would be great if a win or two was possible. Nonetheless, should be a great battle for 2nd in the WCC with Ferrari and Red Bull as already mentioned.

The Alonso thing is very strange, still seems like it's not all fully explained, but perhaps the tabloid stories today about memory loss offer more of an indication as to why it was more serious than we were led to believe. After all, Alonso forgot his involvement in crashgate so it's not new for him to have memory loss

Would love to see Magnussen outqualify and/or outrace Button in Melbourne just to see the look on Ron's face

Also, it's fantastic to see that Manor will probably make it, and it looks like they have some good people onboard.

---

X (@ed24f1)

Yeah, Williams need to push harder this year. In many ways they were correct to play the conservative card last year, especially early on to bank and consolidate their position. But if we're honest, they should have been the ones to capitalise when Merc dropped the ball at both Montreal and Spa but were roundly beaten by Ricciardo and Red Bull.

Merc, seem to have as solid as an advantage as they had last year, so Williams will definitely have to be a little more creative to up their game to be one to take advantage of the rare problem. At the moment it is still Red Bull better placed on race strategy.

Oh and flash back one year, and remember that kmag actually did out qualify Button, and finish ahead in the race.

Chatted with Rod Nelson on the final day in Barcelona and he said that Williams expects to be in a scrap with Ferrari for second.

He agreed that the team played it conservative on occasion after a lot of bad luck in the opening part of the season. Should have been on the podium in Australia and Bahrain.

Tabloid stuff is just that at the moment, Ron gave no indication that anything like that had happened. He mentioned some memory loss, very briefly in the immediate aftermath of the accident, but he said Alonso was lucid and conversing with the medical staff on the scene.

Anyway, McLaren isn't going to talk about it, they've made that very clear. They'll leave it to the doctors.

---

Races: 163 - Wins: 23 - Pole Positions: 24 - Fastest Laps: 22
Season 9: Constructors' Champions

Yes, I guess it wasn't a surprise necessarily that Red Bull were better placed to capitalise on those Mercedes errors. After all, as the then-champion team their instinct for winning and strategy was perhaps unsurpassed. Whereas Williams dithered about, for example by not making a decisive call on Massa being stuck behind Bottas at Canada.

Ferrari2007 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Tabloid stuff is just that at the moment, Ron gave
> no indication that anything like that had
> happened. He mentioned some memory loss, very
> briefly in the immediate aftermath of the
> accident, but he said Alonso was lucid and
> conversing with the medical staff on the scene.

Ron made some mistakes in his statement (e.g. saying there was no concussion) and is hardly known for giving too much away, so I don't think what he's said could necessarily discount the rumours today. Who knows, "some memory loss" could be code for 20 years of it in Ron-speak haha.

---

X (@ed24f1)

And Manor are on their way trucks left factory last night, freight leaves today. Next hurdles are scrutineering and getting the damned thing to run.

What an effort, and a good few fingers waving in the air as they fly over India on the way too.